Erin O'Hare

Two of Tavola’s bartenders are shaking up national drinks-related competitions. Bar manager Steve Yang was named one of 12 regional finalists in the United States Bartenders’ Guild’s annual World Class bartending competition. “Qualifying is both humbling and terrifying,” Yang says of going shaker-to-shaker with some of the best bartenders in the country. An expert panel […]

Light rain falls softly and steady on patchy grass, whispering pat-pat-pat-pat as it dampens the rocky soil. It’s late February, and despite the rain, the air is warm at the foot of Bear Mountain in Amherst County. Dean Branham isn’t wearing a jacket, and rain droplets bead and roll off his baseball cap onto his […]

When Lincoln Perry lived in a house on Altamont Circle, he would crawl up to the roof of the Altamont apartment building to get a good view of the North Downtown neighborhood’s brick houses and church steeples for some of his paintings, including the one shown here. This painting is part of a series that […]

One of the most iconic images from the classic holiday film A Christmas Story is the fishnet stocking- and black stiletto-clad leg lamp that causes quite a stir when Ralphie’s dad, Mr. Parker, displays it in the front window of his home at Christmastime. With its fringe-trimmed shade reminiscent of a can-can dancer’s skirt, the […]

Bicycles are a great way to get around. They’re economical, eco-friendly and good exercise. But their design never made much sense to television and film editor and director—and lifelong bike rider—Scotty Wilson. Bikes are big, bulky and not easily transported from one place to the other (unless the bike is the transportation); they’re a pain […]

During the month of March, local artist Judy McLeod exhibits work from her oeuvre at three different galleries, each individual show representing a different phase in her 40-plus years of art-making. “An artist works in series whereby an idea is pursued visually for months or years in terms of a medium,” says McLeod, and while […]

Jay “Jaewar” King listened to a lot of reggae while growing up in Virginia Beach. His Jamaican-born father always had the stereo on, with good vibes floating through the speakers and into the home. But it was hip-hop that took hold of him. Captivated by the imagery of the lyrics and by artists like LL […]

After 31 years of selling wine, fresh bread, cheese and more at Market Street Wineshop from the basement level of 311 E. Market St., Robert Harllee has decided to retire. But fear not; Charlottesville is not about to lose another jewel from its quirky downtown crown: Two of Harllee’s longtime employees, Siân Richards and Thadd […]

Take a look inside a backpack and you’ll get a glimpse inside its owner’s life: perhaps notebooks and pens show evidence of his favorite color, or what he likes to do in his free time. There are folders full of assignments that indicate her potential career path, a book she reads for fun and keys […]

In April 2017, Monticello High School student Joshua St. Hill began writing a play. He had been bitten by the theater bug during the school’s production of In the Heights, and his drama teacher, Madeline Michel, asked if he’d like to write something for the stage. He did. Black men who have died as a […]

In the warm glow of a few strings of lights strung above the dance floor of the Music Resource Center auditorium, Ike Anderson leads a group of dancers through a hip-hop routine, demonstrating each toe touch and head bob as he calls: “One and two and three and four, five and six and seven and […]

On the evening of Friday, February 5, artist Bob Anderson stands in the middle of Escafé, identifying the many people in the Escafé Opera murals that his wife, Dominique, painted for the restaurant in 1997 and added to in 2015. There’s the Andersons’ daughter, Adriana, a former server at the restaurant, and the Andersons’ two […]

A blank canvas. That’s what Marie Landragin sees in her mind’s eye when she’s about to play guitar with Free Idea. Just before the first note rings out, she sees a frame, some material, potential for the space to become anything. When the music starts, she says, it begins painting forms, “and there’s color, and very […]

In “Bosom Buddies,” the famous duet from the Broadway musical Mame, eccentric bohemian and title character Mame Dennis gives her friend, actress —and famed lush—Vera Charles a bit of advice: “I feel it’s my duty to tell you it’s time to adjust your age / You try to be Peg O’ My Heart, when you’re […]

Sigrid Eilertson likes to paint surrealistic images of creatures that straddle the line between the realistic and the fantastic, like larger-than-life goddesses and wild animals. She always works in a series, and she tends to work large—many of her paintings are 6 feet or taller. But for her most recent series, “Star Creatures: An Exploration […]

Sitting in the living room of his mom’s house, Malcolm “Waasi” Wills, wearing a retro Looney Tunes T-shirt under a letterman sweater, leans over and lights a stick of incense. As a wisp of smoke curls into the air, Waasi waves it around, blending it into the afternoon light. “I almost cried when I got […]

Editor’s note: The participants in the Kudzu Project act anonymously, and to protect their identities we refer to them by last names only throughout the article. Seven hours and 10 minutes into the new year, a Subaru station wagon pulls out of a Charlottesville driveway and sets out for Lovingston, exhaust billowing from the muffler […]

On November 11 of last year, equipped with a small clipboard, some index cards and a handful of pens, Destinee Wright waited outside the Paramount Theater after a discussion with Spike Lee about race and racial injustice in America, followed by a screening of two Lee documentary films, I Can’t Breathe and 4 Little Girls. […]

When Hassan Kaisoum moved Aromas Café from its original location in the Virginia Department of Forestry building to Barracks Road Shopping Center in 2007, he returned often to Fontaine Research Park to walk the nature trails he’d come to know well since first opening the restaurant in 1998. On those walks, he thought about the […]

What was the last thing you made? Be honest with yourself. Perhaps you made dinner last night, but think hard about the last time you spent an afternoon knitting, strumming a guitar or doodling in a sketchbook. Maybe instead you’ve been reading, listening to albums, looking at paintings or watching “Stranger Things” on Netflix? Are […]

As a painter, I’m always looking for the state of surprise and enchantment,” says Martha Saunders, whose “Transmutations” show is on view at Chroma Projects Gallery this month. Most of the paintings in the show will come from Saunders’ decade-long project Reading Series, a rumination on how the human system digests information. The series “started […]

Fanciful Animals songs often begin the same way most rock songs do: with a riff. While jamming during band practice a while back, Will Ashby picked out a riff on his guitar and it sounded unusually cool. “Play that again,” said bassist Ryan Marley Grant, and so Ashby did, over and over and over again, […]

Unranked and surely incomplete, here’s an alphabetical list of what Charlottesville-area artists released this year. It’s longer than last year’s, and based on interviews and conversations with many of these artists, I suspect it’s because the past year hangs heavy in our hearts. And so, we have music to sustain us, whether we make it […]

We’ll admit it: Last year’s end-of-year restaurant wrap-up was tough to write as we bid farewell to our beloved Spudnuts and to Brookville’s baked egg breakfasts. Little did we know that 2017 would be a boon for eatery openings. This might finally have been the year that convinced us that our eyes are, in fact, […]

On a recent Tuesday morning, a frigid wind whipped through Charlottesville, but all was warm and cozy inside the Cherry Avenue Diner at 820 Cherry Ave. in Fifeville. Sparkly snowman decorations hung from the wall sconces lighting each wooden booth, and two waitresses bustled about behind the counter, one wearing a green elf apron and […]

Eggnog is a pretty polarizing holiday beverage—you either love it or you hate it. But for all the haters out there, have you ever had real eggnog? Not the goopy, eggy stuff poured out of a carton, but the real deal, a thick-but-fluffy stirred custard that could be ice cream were it not for its […]